Tag: Cloud

So what’s an App Service Plan anyway?

As we’ve discussed before, Azure App Service is the primary PaaS offering from Microsoft. You simply deploy your application code and voila — your website/API is live.

That means no more setting up your own VM or installing your own OS or even web server.

Well, that’s the general idea, but remember:

There is no Cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer

The goal of PaaS is to alleviate the need for you to worry about lower-level details by moving you one abstraction level higher. At the end of the day, though, your application code must be running on a VM somewhere.

That’s where an App Service Plan comes in.

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Introducing Azure App Service

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I’ll be introducing you to the Mary-go-round of the Azure Theme Park, namely, Azure App Service.

So, what the heck is Azure App Service anyway?

Well, at first brush, the name of this service is not very forthcoming. Most people won’t immediately guess what an “app service” is, however, it’s actually a lot more familiar than you think.

From web apps to mobile apps, we all know what an “app” is. Well, this is the area of Azure that helps bring your apps to life while keeping you focused on your application instead of worrying about underlying low-level details like the infrastructure, operation system, or even the app hosting platform itself.

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Azure Portals: Classic, New, and Preview

A lot of Azure newcomers get confused by the fact that there is more than one Azure portal.

This was especially a problem last year as Microsoft was transitioning from the “classic” portal to a new “preview” portal.

Back then, all of the Azure services were on the classic portal, however, Microsoft was launching a brand-new “preview” portal, which was re-imagined from scratch, and it promised to be more modern and slick than its predecessor.

The problem was that a lot of the documentation and online videos were based on the classic portal, and a lot of the services were yet to make their way through to the new “preview” portal.

These days, however, this is not much of a problem.

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Interactive Catalog of Azure Services

Just a quick note to share with you this pretty awesome resource that I discovered recently.

This is a very handy interactive catalog of all the main Azure services, grouped logically into areas like Compute, Networking, Web & Mobile, Data & Storage, and so on.

Interactive Azure Platform Overview
You can search by keyword or just browse through, but each service gets its own little snippet along with a collection of useful links to the service overview, pricing information and any technical limits to be aware of!

Azure Mobile Apps snippet expanded

So, what are you waiting for? Check out the Interactive Azure Platform Overview!

Enjoy,
MJ

Azure Technical References

When it comes to learning, not all resources are created equal.

If you’re like me and you’re on a permanent journey of leveling-up on technologies and skills, then you know that finding the right resources along the way is paramount.

Now, when it comes to learning a vast technology like Microsoft Azure, I find that there’s plenty of material out there at levels 100-300, but finding level 400 resources isn’t as simple.

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How well do you know X?

In today’s world of cloud technology, change is coming at a breakneck pace. It’s both very exciting and quite daunting.

So, when you’re facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge, what do you do? Well, you plan and strategize your approach of course!

Take Azure for example, it already has 90+ services with new ones coming out on a regular basis! Learning most of these services, or even keeping up with them is a daunting challenge indeed.

Well, I recently learned of a good mental framework for assessing how well you know something, and I think it’s a great way to tame the learning approach.

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Azure Learning Paths

With each new day, there seems to be yet another Azure service to explore and master. If you try to keep up with the breadth of all Azure services and their associated features, you are bound to feel overwhelmed.

So, how do you deal with such feelings?

Well, there’s a saying for that:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, of course!

It’s really that simple — you just have to pick one service at a time and learn it!

I was pointed to a fantastic resource recently that does an excellent job of laying out a learning path for a lot of Azure services.

Using a flow-chart of sorts, your journey to learning Azure Batch, as an example, can look this elegant:

Azure Batch - Learning Path

 

So, what are you waiting for? Check out Azure Learning Paths!

Enjoy!
MJ